Thank you stranger.

“Beyond work and love, I would add two other ingredients that give meaning to life. First, to fulfil whatever talents we are born with. However blessed we are by fate with different abilities and strengths, we should try to develop them to the fullest, rather than allow them to atrophy and decay. We all know individuals who did not fulfil the promise they showed in childhood. Many of them became haunted by the image of what they might have become. Instead of blaming fate, I think we should accept ourselves as we are and try to fulfil whatever dreams are within our capability.

 

Second, we should try to leave the world a better place than when we entered it. As individuals, we can make a difference, whether it is to probe the secrets of Nature, to clean up the environment and work for peace and social justice, or to nurture the inquisitive, vibrant spirit of the young by being a mentor and a guide.” - Michio Kaku  (my emphasis)

Those of you that grew up in the English education system probably remember the pointlessness of asking a 13/14-year old of choosing subjects to do over the coming 2 years like what you think you want to do at 13 is what you will be able to do once you leave school.  Were we all fortunate enough to have inspiring, multi-skilled mentors?  Were we all fortunate enough to have parents/advisors with the fore-knowledge of the future jobs market to adequately prepare our kids for that future?  Not really.

So we put our faith in careers advisors! Who trains career advisors?  Who wants to be a careers advisor? These people shepherd you into a very limited number of choices based on simplistic matrices (gonna upset a lot of uninteresting people, sorry careers advisors).  You see, society doesn't require lots of smart, questioning individuals, with excellent critical thinking skills.  It doesn't require philosophers, musicians, artists or other creative talents.  Modern western society requires a constant supply of unmotivated, sullen, uninspired doers.  If you don't believe me, what do you do?  More importantly, answer this simple question, why do you do what you do? 

Many of you can probably convince yourself that you love your job/career choice and are happy to be paid less than the market average for your time, in order for your company to be "competitive", to "secure" your future and provide great "opportunities" for your continued "growth" in a company that "values" you as an employee.  But be honest, isn't there something else you could be, or should be doing?  Couldn't you find something else more fulfilling, a hobby or pastime maybe to fill your days?

If you're lucky you'll live for 80 summers, or 20 Olympics, or maybe 1 viewing of Halley's Comet (my daughters will be 51 and 47 respectively on it's next flyby). That's not a lot.  It really isn't and yet most of us will convince ourselves that the career we have chosen is "worthwhile" or at the very least "pays the bills".  Is that what you want written about you in your obituary, "John Smith, husband, father, brother, uncle, son, payer of bills..." It's a bit shit really.

Well, where is my meandering post leading?  Straight to this simple question; what is your raison d'être? Your purpose for existence!  Some readers of this blog know me personally others not, but I hope what I leave you in no doubt of what I believe.  What I believe has been shaped by you, people that I know and strangers alike.  These three things below are not an exhaustive list, but they certainly guide most of my middle-age adult life.

• Global Social Justice - a lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right and evil doesn't become good, just because it is accepted by a majority.  The Earth has enough for all to have a fair share! (http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/17/news/economy/oxfam-wealth/index.html?sr=twmoney011816oxfam-wealth0742AMStoryLink&linkId=20440984) If you believe we live on a fair and equitable planet, then you my friend are delusional! 
• Precautionary Principle - states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public, or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus (that the action or policy is not harmful), the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an action that may or may not be a risk.  The application of this principle has been introduced into some areas of European Law, especially those relating to the environment.  We appear to no longer listen to those with the most knowledge (sciencey-types) and put more stock in those that shout the loudest! 
• Learning Adaptability - it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the richest or most intelligent.  It is the one most adaptable to change (to paraphrase Darwin!).  Be under no doubt that YOU will need to learn adaptation strategies if this (below) continues.  I advise you all to take your time and read through the information on respected websites, NOAA, NASA, WMO about the threat we face... certainly don't take my word for it and certainly don't expect the media to give you an unbiased, sound and thoughtful summary of what is happening.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/summary-info/global/201512

https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/mlo_full_record.png

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_weather&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=news_central

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/03/01/february_2016_s_shocking_global_warming_temperature_record.html

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/global.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/03/22/we-had-all-better-hope-these-scientists-are-wrong-about-the-planets-future/?platform=hootsuite

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/15/march-temperature-smashes-100-year-global-record

It is quite clear what is happening if you read and comprehend at your own pace.  (http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-noaa-analyses-reveal-record-shattering-global-warm-temperatures-in-2015) 15 of the hottest 16 years have occurred since 2001.  2015 was the hottest year since records began (1880) eclipsing the previous record year (2014).  January 2016, February 2016 and March 2016 have all in turn set new records for warmest month compared to the previous warmest.  Oh and if you are too stupid to see what your lying eyes are showing you, then, as we say in England, "do one" as you are equally as liable for causing the misery that awaits my children.

But lets not end this on such a negative note.  I wanted to say thank you.  Thank you for making me think about my children.  Thank you for giving me a laser-focus on giving them the tools to face an uncertain and scary future.  Thank you giving me the time to learn and teach adaptation.  Thank you for doing nothing, you forced me to do SOMETHING and I sincerely mean this, I needed the kick in the ass!  Thank you for turning me into a useful mentor for my children.

“The purpose of life is to stay alive. Watch any animal in nature--all it tries to do is stay alive. It doesn't care about beliefs or philosophy. Whenever any animal's behaviour puts it out of touch with the realities of its existence, it becomes extinct.” - Michael Crichton

 

Oh and if any of you were shocked by this post, I've got form...

 

http://palmer-permaculture.blogspot.fr/2009/11/anthropoclastic-climate-change.html

 

http://palmer-permaculture.blogspot.fr/2010/02/home-project.html

 

http://palmer-permaculture.blogspot.fr/2012/02/sssh-climate-change.html

 

http://palmer-permaculture.blogspot.fr/2012/03/science-is-clear.html

 

http://palmer-permaculture.blogspot.fr/2012/05/scared-shitless.html

 

http://palmer-permaculture.blogspot.fr/2014/09/why-we-do-what-we-do-catastrophic.html

 

 



Spring Update April 2016

Welcome to Spring in the Northern Hemisphere.  Whilst many in the dark days of Winter cosy up and become a little lethargic, we've been pretty busy.  Photo documentary time...

Axe and cross-cut saw are our chosen weapons...

Wood is kind of an obsession now.  The above picture shows the main wood processing area's yield to date.  Lots more to be cut and split this year though.

The area has been cleared of canopy to encourage coppicing.

It's a mixture of oak and beech this year.

This wood is in the lowest part of the valley by the stream so will require quite the effort to get it back to the top of the slope.

Looking back up the slope you can see how we are clearing as we go, low hanging fruit first.

 

This is the secret garden with dozens of small growing areas.  There is a lot of experimentation going on here, more to follow as we check out the yield throughout the coming year.

This picture and the one below is the sun garden.

Hedgerows are increasing in density each year, we heavily mulched this one on the western side of the house.

This new hedgerow has been planted just to the west of the Yurt to add a bit of protection from stormy winters.

The hazel and goji berry are doing well.

We also have a new hugel bed to the north of the Yurt.

We went a bit mulching crazy.

As those familiar with gardening will know you can spend a lot of time in the Spring and Summer pulling weeds... we don't really want to so have started a program of sheet mulching an area, followed by heavily mulching the area with organic materials and moving the sheet to a new area.

A very exciting development is the addition of a 14ft x 40ft poly tunnel that should be here this week.  A separate post on the construction and then use of it to follow.  We have decided to position it on the furthest bed away in this above picture.

The pond has been dug for some time just waiting for a liner, which turned up this Spring.

We sodded it, stretched out the liner and recovered with the sod.  Next we will get some ducks to enjoy it along with some pond plants.

This adds some humidity to the area and will hopefully encourage beneficial predators to our garden.  Pond accident drills are next on the agenda seeing we have two little girls, Papa is going to get wet, me thinks!